


kiss the girl

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Drunkenness, F/M, First Kiss, Future Fic, Hotels, POV Phil Coulson, Phil Coulson: human disaster, Skye | Daisy Johnson's Superpowers, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-05
Updated: 2015-04-05
Packaged: 2018-03-21 10:19:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3688515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He knows letting Hunter get him drunk is a bad, horrible idea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	kiss the girl

**i.**

He's lost the taste for being on the run. Maybe he's just lost the practice, after so many years. And all those daydreams about running away and taking a break from being Director. Well, now maybe he'll get a permanent break from that. Maybe he wasn't the Director of SHIELD at all. Maybe Gonzales was right. After all he let them take the organization from him. And he hasn't even been able to help Skye. That's gone too. And the worst part is: he doesn't know what to do next. That's new. He's usually the man with two, three plans.

Hunter seems to know what to do next. 

And what Hunter wants to do next is haul Coulson into the little roadside bar right next to their anonymous motel.

"I really don't think there's time," Coulson says, while he lets himself be dragged to the bar.

"Time is all we have tonight, my friend," Hunter says, that fake indoctrinating tone of his. It can get grating quickly.

They could, they could have time. If the goal was surviving, Coulson knows how to survive. But he had wanted to find Skye, he had wanted to take back his team. Running away wasn't the point. That would mean selling them out, throwing them to the wolves. No. He has to fix this. Doesn't know how. He just has to fix this.

"What do you want? It's on me," Hunter tells him, like he is completely unfazed by the situation. Under normal circusmtances Coulson might find it comforting. Right now he's just really frustrated with the other man.

"I'm not drinking."

"Why the hell not?"

"The trail is cold," Coulson says.

He hadn't wanted to admit it out loud, but it's obvious; he can't find Skye. He has no clue how. He's paralized by more than fear. It's the vast amount of no options in front of him.

"Exactly," Hunter tells him. "And there's nothing we can do from here, tonight. Tomorrow we'll figure it out. But you haven't slept a wink in two days. Come on."

"Do you want me to drink or do you want me to sleep?" Coulson complains.

Hunter gives him a tired look.

"Well, in _your_ case, one has to do with the other. Come on, Mark. A beer and a scotch for my boss here. And don't goo too far, okay?"

" _Mark_? How the hell do you know the barman's name already?" he asks. "We just got here. We just walked in."

"Please, sir, don't understimate me."

He knows letting Hunter get him drunk is a bad, bad ideas.

He has no energy to oppose bad ideas tonight.

 

 

**ii.**

_Did she drag you down there kicking and screaming?_

He's not sure Gonzales is wrong, though. He's not sure he has an explanation. His behavior has not been exactly Director-like of late. But he liked the idea of not having to answer to anyone other than a handful of people who were in the same boat as he was, people who understood why he did the things he did. The thing with Skye. It's easy to understand once you know her. His team got it. It wasn't about categories or – or whatever he said to May, trying to talk himself out of sending Skye away. There was a comfort in accountability among his team. They watched each other's backs, but they also watched each other. Coulson is not sure that's what Fury had in mind when he gave him the job. He's not sure Fury was in his right mind at all when he made that call. Maybe they are all right about this, Gonzales and Weaver and – and Bobbi. Bobbi hurts the most. He didn't even think about the possibility. He hadn't wanted to. But maybe she had the right idea. Maybe he is a fake. He always felt like one, all those months. He couldn't keep the team safe, he could keep SHIELD, he couldn't help Skye. Can he do anything at all?

 

 

**iii.**

He lies in bed, cheap linen scratching his arms, listening to Hunter fight the blankets in search of a comfortable position. Things he never thought he'd find out about: Lance Hunter is a nervous sleeper, twisting and thrashing all night long.

Coulson lies awake, listening to the regular noise of trucks passing by, highway motel perk, the kind he had forgotten all about.

And of course all that drinking was a bad idea – he soon gave up on the beer and went straight for the scotch before remembering he doesn't drink on the job, and he's always on the job. And of course it got him thinking about the last time he saw Skye, when he didn't know it was to be the last time. When he left her there. He _left_ her and he didn't even – 

Well, what's the use?

"Yeah I'm awake," Hunter says. He sounds annoyingly sober after all those drinks.

"What?"

"I can hear you think."

He thinks about apologizing. He doesn't. Minutes go by.

"I should have kissed her," Coulson mutters.

Hunter mutters a half-distracted "What?" in reply.

If he has even heard there's no mystery in his surprise.

"When I said goodbye to Skye..." Coulson says, staring at the ceiling. A movie set would dictate that the ceiling should be stained with dampness, but this is real life, and the ceiling is clean, and he never kissed the girl. "I didn't know I was saying goodbye."

"You'll see her soon enough," Hunter says, and his trooper attitude doesn't quite reach his voice this time. Maybe he's just tired. Coulson wouldn't be surprised if he was just tired of his bullshit.

"I should have kissed her when I had the chance. For a moment in that cabin... I really wanted to."

It's absurd, obviously, because Skye wouldn't have wanted his _advances_ , not then, not ever. Coulson is good at reading people – Skye has never felt that way about him. He is not supposed to think that way about her. It's all sentimentality and a sense of loss. He wants to hold on to something, even if it's this terrible idea of wanting to kiss her. He just wants to think he could have made some gesture, at the end of it. 

It's easy in retrospect to believe that's what he wanted to do.

"I wanted to," he repeats.

"Well, well, well," Hunter says, sounding satisfied. "I can't say this comes as a surprise to me."

"No, it's not that, " Coulson tries to explain. "Skye doesn't..."

He clears his throat, trying to gather himself. Remembering Hunter is his agent, not his confessor.

"Don't mind me, I'm just drunk."

"You keep telling yourself that, mate," Hunter says in the dark. Then softer: "You keep telling yourself that."

The cold sweat that comes from too much drinking. He dreams about the safehouse that night. About that last day, when he left Skye there. He dreams he changes his mind right after, and he turns around to go back into the cabin. He dreams he tries to open the door to go back in but the door won't open. The doorknob won't bulge. He dreams the cabin recedes in front of his eyes, getting away from him. He calls Skye's name but it seems like in the dream she doesn't hear him. He chases the cabin as it slips further away. Eventually he catches up with it, except in the dream the cabin is not the cabin anymore, it's the temple down that damn city, and Coulson is no longer pounding at the wooden door of the safehouse but at solid impenetrable rock and the dream becomes a memory and then he wakes up.

Hunter is snoring loudly and Coulson slips past him to get to the bathroom. He locks himself there, getting sick, feeling defeated.

 

 

**iv.**

The anonymous hotel lounge is filled with strangers, and they look like two strangers, too. He can pass unnoticed, easily, but Skye... he's not so sure. Except she has the experience to make herself invisible, if not the face.

"Pharmaceutical sales convention, uh?" Skye says, looking around. 

"I doubt _SHIELD_ will think of looking for me here."

"You do look a bit like a rep," she tells him.

Coulson smiles, guessing she's right. He has taken off his jacket, and his suit is in need of some serious and conscientious ironing. He guesses he just looks like a guy right now.

"My grandfather was a salesman, old school, pure Arthur Miller stuff," he tells Skye, for some reason, or maybe because he has missed talking to her. "Maybe I'm just living up to my family tradition."

She looks around, making sure no one is paying attention to them. Still looking at the world with the eyes of a con artist or a spy, Coulson can never be sure and he never wanted to be sure. They could be strangers. How much better Skye's life would be now, if she had never met him. If they were strangers right now, meeting by chance in a hotel bar. What would he say to her then? What would he do? He watches her face when she is not looking, feeling like she might disappear any moment now. She turns around to face him, trying for a smile, not quite getting there but landing in the vicinity.

"So... fancy meeting you here," she says.

He smiles back. They have told each other the bare minium of detail over the phone. Coulson is not sure the line – which only four people in the world know about – is still secure. The fact that the hotel hall is not swarming with _SHIELD_ agents right now is an indication it might be.

Hunter is keeping watch outside, just in case.

"I needed you to know I was safe," Skye tells him. "After May's message, and what happened in the cabin... I didn't know if any of you were alive, even."

Coulson nods. "Same here. I didn't know what had happened to you."

The longest handful of days of his life. He stares at Skye like he can't believe she's in front of him. Like it's been years since the last time they saw each other. He stares at her and he thinks maybe he is staring too much or too hard.

"Well, I can't stay long," Skye says, looking away.

"Why?"

"I told you on the phone. The people who are helping me control my powers... they don't like outside interferences."

"They are not holding you hostage or anything?"

"No, of course not," Skye replies, leaning back on her seat, like she's a bit offended. "They're good people, Coulson. That's why I wouldn't want to risk them being found out or leading a third party to their doorstep. They've trusted me with a lot. I would want to repay that faith."

"I see."

"And I imagine those other guys are still looking for me."

He nods. Bobbi had told him everything, that was the first thing Skye had asked when she made contact, if she had hurt anyone back at the safehouse. 

He already knows Skye is not coming back with him. Not now. She has found something. Something she needs. He can tell.

"I imagine," he says.

"So if you see something suspicious pretend we're strangers and you're just hitting on me," Skye teases, trying to lighten the mood.

Coulson winces, a pang of guilt upon remembering his worthless conversation with Hunter in that motel, that night.

And he can't blame Skye. He hasn't told her how bad the situation was for them, not yet. 

But he needs her. He's not sure there's any chance of taking SHIELD back without her.

"You won't have to wait long," she is telling him.

"That's not–"

"I'm making great progress here. I'm almost able to control it."

"And you're–" he starts, glancing down at her hands and swallowing.

"I'm okay. I'm not hurting myself anymore."

"That's good."

Her expression becomes soft and unsure.

"These people... Coulson... they knew my mom."

Coulson sits up straight in his stool. He was not expecting that. He suddenly feels – he doesn't know how to explain it. It's something good. 

He smiles warmly. "Skye..."

"Yeah. Pretty big, uh? I'm not just learning about myself, my powers. I'm learning about her. She was some kind of awesome leader in the community."

"Of course she was," Coulson says.

She looks so happy for a moment, talking about her mother.

He knows what that means to her. He's not going to take it away. Not even for the sake of SHIELD. He has to find another way. Who knows, maybe May has already reduced the whole of fake SHIELD and solved the problem while he idles away the days in hotels. That's a plausible scenario, he thinks, knowing May.

"I don't know what's going on with SHIELD _and SHIELD_ ," Skye says. "But if you say you need my help I'll pack up and come with you. Hell, I don't have anything to pack up. We can go now."

It's tempting, and for a moment Skye looks actually pleased with the idea. By the choice being taken from her. She would do it, too. But he can't let her.

"You should go back," he tells her after a couple of minutes in silence. "Things are... complicated, I won't deny it. But – we're not dealing with bad people here, just mistaken. And Hunter, May and I, we got this."

Skye narrows her eyes at him.

"You're _lying_."

"How can you tell?" he asks her.

"Because you've lied to me enough times," she explains. "I know what it looks like on your face."

"I'm sorry."

"For lying to me before or for lying to me _now_?" Skye asks.

"For everything,"he admits, unable just to pick one thing. If he goes far enough – _I'm sorry Garrett had you shot to see what I'd do_ , but it's too late for that, he missed the window for that one a long time ago.

"Coulson... I'm not ready," she adds, if she needed to justify her choice. "I can't control it yet. But I'm getting there."

"That's why I don't want you to come with me."

"But I can't stand by and do nothing while you guys are in danger," she says.

He knows that too.

He nods at her resolve.

"Then hurry up, get ready, control it. Stop wasting time meeting strange men in hotel bars."

That makes her smile.

His whole world has fallen apart –again– in just one week and he still finds comfort in making Skye smile. What does it say about the kind of man he is? Coulson thinks Gonzales should have accounted for that. It's not alien messages running through his veins, it's something a lot simpler, and a lot more embarrassing, even more unlike the Director of SHIELD, if you think about it. He should be sacked for this.

Skye still looks unsure.

The buzz and clutter around them – busy pharmceutical types, maybe he should have considered the career, it doesn't look too bad from where he stands – seems to part for a moment, leaving their little scene untouched.

He covers her hand with his, squeezing lightly. 

"We'll find a way, I promise," he tells her. "Focus on your end of the problem. Okay?"

Her lips curl into a smile. It's different now. Something about the old Skye, before this mess. The Skye that's always there, the red corvette.

"Now it _really_ looks like you are hitting on me," she says.

Coulson chuckles, but he takes his hand away just in case.

 

 

**v.**

Picking up the pieces has always been his specialty.

Not because he was designed for it, but because he had always been enough of a chump to stay afterwards and clean up.

He's glad he has help now. Bobbi and Mack – well, they have the team. He's glad Andrew is giving a hand. Coulson didn't help much with May the first time around, now he's not arrogant enough to think he could do any better. FitzSimmons still have their doubts, of course, and so do the new recruits, but that's something to work through together. It's exhausting just to think about.

He doesn't mind the hard work, but he has to admit that rebuilding SHIELD for a second time in a year feels like so twisted cosmic joke. At least they have the Playground. Chipped but still standing, and still a secret to the world at large.

He finds it easier to do some menial task like cleaning up his office.

He'll have to buy another desk, of course. Somehow new furniture is not a priority. At least his record collection is intact.

"Don't you have like hundreds of minions to do that for you now?" Hunter asks him when he sees him with the dustpan in hand, seizing him up from the door, arms crossed.

They all have scratches and bruises, but they are all in one piece, and relatively sane for once.

"Yeah, well, for some reason, I'm a bit wary of people snooping around my office these days."

Hunter snorts. For a moment Coulson is sure he is going to make a crack about Bobbi, but even Hunter realizes she needs to be let off the hook for a few days just yet.

Instead Hunter does something worse.

"So what are you planning to do about Skye?" he says, no preamble.

Coulson doesn't meet Hunter's eye.

"What about her?" he asks. 

He can hear Hunter walk behind him, entering the room with an audible huffing, like Coulson is so predictably disappointing. Coulson feels like reminding Hunter that's he's almost twenty years his senior and Hunter shouldn't patronize him like he's an adolescent. But even if there was any rank to pull – and the whole point of this SHIELD, and Coulson doesn't know if it's true or the fake SHIELD, it's just theirs, is that there are no more ranks to pull – Hunter has way too much dirt on him, he'd never get away with it. With some luck he'd end up getting blackmailed for his troubles.

Hunter leans against Coulson's desk – the one they have to replace, gaping hole in the middle of it.

"You said you should have kissed her when you had the chance," Hunter reminds him. "Now you have the chance. Many chances, actually. Twenty four hours a day of chances."

Coulson picks up one of the shards of glass from behind the bookshelf, overlooked on the preliminary clean-up.

He's not going to pretend he doesn't know what Hunter is talking about. He owes the guy that much respect at least.

"I was drunk, Hunter. You'd do well to forget what I said."

"And you'd do well to remember," Hunter replies.

Coulson sighs. He could point out Hunter was the one to get him drunk in the first place. It didn't help. It made things worse that night – all those nightmares.

"I should have made it a clause in your contract, minding your own business," Coulson tells him.

Hunter just shrugs, his MO.

"Some things are worth breaking a contract for."

"Are you going to help or not?" Coulson says, offering him the dustpan.

" _Cleaning_?" Hunter asks like it's the dirtiest word he knows.

 

 

**vi.**

And he's willing to let it go. Forever. He has done it before.

The night he found out about Project Tahiti. That was the first time he felt like he wanted to say something more, something else – but he didn't know what. He just felt like being out there by the pool, sharing a candy bar with Skye, had been a defining moment. Or could have been, if he had done something about it. And right after he stopped carving on the walls, he felt a window there, to not let it go. But he let it go, pushed forward for their need to find the city – _did she drag you down there kicking and screaming?_ and maybe it's a good thing he didn't have time afterwards to think it over, why exactly he had gone down, followed Skye into certain death or worse. And he didn't have time afterwards, to do anything but let it go.

He's willing to let it go this time too. He's got a taste for it.

He wasn't counting on finding her here, at midnight, in the kitchen.

He doesn't startle her, approaching, but she startles him a bit.

"Trouble sleeping?" Skye asks, like it's a private joke. "Because with you that tends to be a worrying sign."

Coulson finds himself chuckling at that. Okay, private, but not a joke exactly.

"No, I'm just hungry," he tells her.

"Yeah me too."

She resumes her search through the cupboards.

Coulson stares at her back. He still has this feeling she's going to disappear. It is unfair, he knows, after everything she has done, but he still has the feeling she is going to announce she's walking away and going back to them, to her own people. The ones who helped her when he couldn't. Who would blame her. So Coulson is still afraid, not knowing if looking at her will ever feel as something other than temporary.

"I think our usurpers made a number on our pantry though," Skye comments, when her efforts turn up nothing more tempting than Bobbi's and Simmons' healthy snacks, which make Skye scrunch her nose.

"Well, I know for sure Hunter keeps a stash of peanut butter somewhere," Coulson says, helping her look.

"And jam? Classy. Please, do the honors."

And so it's decided and Skye jumps on the counter as he starts making a couple of sandwiches.

He thinks back on those last moments in the safehouse weeks ago. He had wanted to stay with her then, sit with her, help her through it. Though he knew Skye had to be alone or she'd never be able to get better – though he was wrong about that, as it turned out – he had wanted to stay. And he had wanted to take all the food he had brought with them and cook for her. It was a silly impulse, in the the face of the enormous pain Skye was in, maybe as silly as wanting to kiss her, but he couldn't help it.

It's just a stupid PB&J sandwich, all right, but Coulson applies himself to the task as if suddenly it were the most important thing in the world. He guesses he hasn't been able to do much for Skye since this whole mess started. And in the end she was the one who had done everything for them.

"Did you eat a lot of these when you were a kid?" Skye asks.

"Of course. Every kid does."

"I think I might even have overdosed," she says. "One of my foster mothers tried to bring us up on that stuff alone, me and my brothers. She took in eight of us and she was always shortchanging us on the food. I think she was only interested in the government check, if you know what I mean – that was late in the game, when the nuns didn't know what to do with me. After that I never touched the stuff."

Coulson stares at her. Skye's stories about her childhood – though always told in a self-deprecating upbeat style – always leave a bad taste in his mouth.

"Well, if I had known I wouldn't have started with the sandwiches."

"No, it's all right. Water under the bridge. I think it's time I try again."

Coulson nods, now wishing he had something better at hand to offer.

Skye seems to like it well enough, once they get into it. Though perhaps Coulson had expected her to be more enthusiastic. He feels oddly deflected, like he's messed something up again.

Is it weird being here at midnight, eating something like this, so shortly after the Other SHIELD's failed coup? Maybe it is, Coulson doesn't know anymore.

"Hey, I never showed you my cool water trick," Skye says, all of the sudden, putting the sandwich down and jumping off the counter.

"What water trick?"

She gestures for him to come closer while she turns on the tap.

"Watch this," she says, putting her hands around the stream as if she were trying very carefully to catch a live animal.

For a moment nothing happens and Coulson wonders. Then the stream begins to move, no longer falling straight on the sink, no, falling while it swirls, moving slow, or moving in reverse, upward into the faucet, or whatever Skye wants it to do. Coulson holds his breath when he understands this is what is happening. Skye is affecting the water. She moves her hands slightly and the water follows her commands. She moves her hands playfully and the water obeys, happily, childlike, like it was alive. Like it was alive thanks to Skye.

Coulson feels like... he can't describe it. He has felt the earth shake because of Skye's powers, and he has always thought it wondrous in its own right. He even witnessed how she helped Bobbi take a whole battleship down. But this is different. More like a miracle. His eyes do not understand what they are seeing yet it feels like the most natural thing in the world – like watching glaciers move in front of you, slow and important. It makes Coulson feel small, but in a good way. He can feel the hair on his arms stand.

This tiny, huge thing, water swirling to Skye's gentle wishes.

How does she do it? _How_?

"It's the first thing I did which didn't make me feel crappy about having my abilities," she says and even though Coulson can't look at her in the face – that would mean tearing his eyes from the water, and he _can't_ – there's something bright in her voice. "I felt like it was..."

"Awesome," Coulson utters, unable to stop looking.

He can feel Skye looking at him.

"Yeah. _Awesome_. That's what I thought. And it was the first time, so it's important for me."

"It's amazing," he says again.

Slowly she returns the water stream to its original state. With a little sigh she turns off the tap. Coulson lifts his eyes towards her. 

"So? You like my cool water trick?" she asks, a happy but curiously tentative. "Say you like it."

Coulson can only stare.

For too long a time, it seems. Skye frowns at it.

"What?" she asks. "Why are you looking at me like that? You're freaking me out, say something."

He takes a moment to find his voice.

"Am I too late?" he asks, a desperate and foolish old man.

Skye's frown deepens. "What do you mean, _too late_?"

"I should have never left you alone in the safehouse."

Skye moves closer to him.

" _Hey_ , you thought you were helping me. You were trying to keep me safe. And god knows what would have happened if I had been here when Not Quite SHIELD attacked. I might have hurt people. I might have never learned how to use my powers, so I might have never been able to come back and save all your asses," she smiles at that. "You ever think about it that way? Right or wrong taking me out of the equation might have saved a lot of lives."

"Still," Coulson says, rapping his fingers on the counter.

Perhaps he should leave it alone. It has worked for him so far.

But Skye doesn't leave it alone.

"What did you mean by that? _Too late_?" she asks. A shark would be more merciful. Coulson shakes his head but she holds on, the prey settled under her fangs. "Coulson."

"When I left you in that cabin, all alone, I should have... I wanted to, I think I wanted to. I just couldn't bring myself to..."

"Gibberish," she points out.

He realizes he's out of breath. This used to be easier. This used to be easy. For that other Coulson. The one from before. The one who was a good agent and trustworthy and not a messenger for the Kree, maybe, the Coulson who wouldn't go down doomed alien cities to die for nothing, for a – 

He tries again.

"I didn't want to say good-bye to you that day."

"I didn't want you to say goodbye either," Skye replies.

There's something touching about the way she says it, casually, even though Coulson knows she doesn't mean it in the same way.

"I wanted to say something more. You know? It felt like something was wasted in that moment. Like I let something go."

She nods slightly, like she knows what he means, a bit at list. She leans back against the sink, wrapping her fingers around the edge.

"What would you have wanted to say?" she asks him. "Back in the safehouse. What would you have said?"

She's studying Coulson's face for an answer.

"It's not so much what I wanted to say but what I wanted to do," he confesses.

He notices Skye's chest rising the moment he says it, like she's bracing herself for something. She must know what he is talking about. Coulson searches her eyes for any sign of fear or disgust. He braces himself too, for rejection.

"What would you have wanted to _do_?" she asks him, almost a whisper in the half-dark kitchen.

He's come this far and he has Hunter's nagging voice – now you have a chance – in his head.

The idea he had in his mind, about what he should have done back in the cabin, he should have kissed her with courage and bravado, like in a film, some very dramatic affair. That's what he wants to do right now. But he's not brave enough. He touches his mouth against hers tentatively, softly, and he doesn't push further until Skye begins to open her mouth under him. He slides his tongue carefully and it's nice, even if it lacks the passion he had meant to share with Skye, what he really feels, she's not pushing him away – is she inviting him in? he can feel her tongue pressed against his – and he dares rest his hands on her waist, stepping into her space until their chests are touching and he's backing her against the sink, Skye kissing back all the way, following his movements all the way, like a good team. It's a long kiss, because he is too much of a coward to hear what Skye has to say just yet, so he makes it last, and for a moment his grip on her waist tightens and he can't say he's not affected by all this – it's quite late, he's in quite a sensitive state, _it's Skye_ , he shouldn't be judged too harshly – and Skye pushes back, like it's so easy for her, sucking his bottom lip and biting gently just before she breaks the kiss to draw a breath.

When he himself pulls back, the warmth of Skye so close gone in a moment but his hands still wrapped around her hips, she is miraculously smiling at him.

"Yeah," she says. "You definitely should have done that back in the safehouse."

"Yes?"

She raises an amused eyebrow at him.

"Can you keep a secret? I wanted you to kiss me then. I was sad when you didn't."

Coulson frowns, skeptic. "You wanted me to–?"

Skye runs her hands up his arms and god Coulson doesn't know if she is using her powers with him but she might as well be, the way her touch is making him shiver.

"Why do you sound so surprised?" she asks.

"I don't know. Because you're so..."

"What?"

_You. Because you're you._

"... you can do the thing with the water," he tells her. "You can flatten a forest. You can command the elements. Guys like me – we're not on that level."

"Coulson," she calls, that tone she sometimes uses like she's a bit sad for him, for being so clueless. "There are no guys like you."

She grabs his shoulders and draws him against her, pressing her mouth against his. It feels different now that she started it. Skye knows how to kiss with bravado and passion and like they don't have time. Yes, Coulson thinks, feeling her open his mouth under her urgent lips, that's more like what he had in mind. She's got it right, when he couldn't. Well, Coulson doesn't mind much, who got it right first, as long as she keeps kissing him like this, greedy and tender. She makes him feel – like this is not temporary. He's no longer afraid of her disappearing any moment now, or walking away. Skye kisses him like she's here to stay.

He lifts her by the hips, propping her on the counter. Skye replies in kind, wrapping her arms around Coulson's neck and her legs around his waist. They both moan into each other's mouth when he presses his obvious hard-on against the inside of Skye's thigh, her pajama pants offering very little resistance.

All of the sudden she pulls back, drawing her head back to look at Coulson.

"What?" he asks, his heart a painful mess flinging itself against his ribs, fearing he's done something wrong.

Skye touches the tips of her fingers to the line of his mouth carefully.

"Mm mm..."

"What?" he asks again.

Skye licks her own lips. 

"You taste of PB&J," she tells him. "I think I've _finally_ gotten over my dislike of it."

Coulson chuckles, pulling her closer.


End file.
